Commenting on train reliability (Letters, August 27), Samantha Hodder, head of communications for Southern, compared the mark 1 slam-door trains' acute reliability problems to the problems with the new plastic trains.

But the only problem on the old steel trains was related to the electric parking brake on the first batch. This was discarded on later builds.

It is also interesting to note from her letter that for 15 years Southern passengers have been allowed to ride in trains judged unsafe following the Clapham Junction crash in 1989.

-Mike Mundy, Burgess Hill